Interesting findings which are not unexpected. There are multiple reasons why whole grains might reduce risk of diabetes. However is the effect due to the content of the whole grains themselves? 1/9 https://twitter.com/bmj_company/status/1281128619151106053

The authors noted:

“Because individual whole grain foods contain various amounts of dietary fiber, magnesium, antioxidants, and phytochemicals, they might have distinct associations with the risk of type 2 diabetes”

However...

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They also noted that those who had higher whole grain consumption had:

Lean mass

Multivitamin use

Physical activity

Diet quality

Screening

Current smokers

Family history of diabetes

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So what actually caused the benefit? The whole grains or the multiple other factors?

The answer is probably a bit of both. Looking at the last tweet, whole grains may well be a general biomarker of overall diet quality and therefore a contributor to health.

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So rather than whole grains preventing diabetes explicitly, it may well be a case of those consuming whole grains being healthier overall and therefore less likely to develop diabetes.

It boils down to the mantra of correlation ≠ causation

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In the conclusion the authors state they saw:

“a non-linear dose-response association between total whole grain intake and diabetes”

Supporting the idea that healthy actions such as eating whole grains may be related to other healthy behaviours, dietary or otherwise

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Therefore eating lots of whole grains is not likely to prevent diabetes (not that the authors suggested this) but rather they are part of an overall healthy eating pattern. And if there’s one thing I love, it’s a healthy eating pattern.

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Reductionism and looking at single nutrients/groups in nutrition has limited value. It’s like a close up on a photo rather than looking at the full picture. Studies like these are important and give us important information but headlines don’t always do them justice

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In summary, an interesting paper with an interesting finding but it’s always beneficial to dig a little deeper and think of the broader picture.

I hope you enjoyed

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